The Enneagram is the personality fad of today. It’s everywhere, and especially within Christian circles. Some love it; some roll their eyes at it; and some still may not know what it is.

I have been personally studying the Enneagram for the past three and a half years and believe it to be a unique personality typing system. Of course, there are many other personal and professional typing methods available—Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, StrengthsFinder, and DiSC profile, to name a few. Still, I’ve not yet found a tool as helpful in understanding not just the what or how of one’s personality, but also the why. It gets into the nitty-gritty of the motivation behind why we live and view life the way we do. This creates a helpful framework of understanding self, as well as understanding others. I’ve found it so unique that I have made it part of the curriculum in a leadership class I teach.

One book that I have recently revisited is Spiritual Rhythms for the Enneagram, by the Calhoun’s and Loughrige’s. Alongside Chris Heuertz’s The Sacred Enneagram, it is one of my favorite’s thus far. I particularly enjoy the emphasis of utilizing the Enneagram for spiritual formation. Not that the Enneagram is some intrinsically Christian tool. But it is a tool nonetheless, one that I believe can help with understanding self – how one was created, what pains (and trauma) we are dealing with, all in order to connect with our loving Creator and find wholeness.